Motivational Quotes

Humankind

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.

- Weil, Simone

Best Quotes about Humankind

Considered logically this concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred to; but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind.

Einstein, Albert

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Mencken, H. L.

Man was nature's mistake --she neglected to finish him -- and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

Hoffer, Eric

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Socrates

If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.

Pope, Alexander

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

Canetti, Elias

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Churchill, Winston

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Man is a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Twain, Mark

10.

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.

Weil, Simone

11.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy, John F.

12.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

13.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

King Jr. Martin Luther

14.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

15.

Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it -- and some of your spouse's family does too.

16.

People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire,why wasn't it done the other way?

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

17.

A human being is a single being. Unique and unrepeatable.

Caddy, Eileen

18.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

19.

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

Twain, Mark

20.

Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.

Donne, John

21.

The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey.

Lippmann, Walter

22.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Gide, Andre

23.

Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. [Genesis 3:5]

Bible

24.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

25.

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Marshall, Thurgood

26.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

Lawrence, D. H.

27.

The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous.

Leonard, George

28.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Steinbeck, John

29.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Wilde, Oscar

30.

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.

Miller, Henry

31.

There are two kinds of men who never amount to much -- those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.

Curtis, Cyrus H. K

32.

Human beings, for all their pretensions, have a remarkable propensity for lending themselves to classification somewhere within neatly labeled categories. Even the outrageous exceptions may be classified as outrageous exceptions!

Reichmann, W.J.

33.

The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but by what takes place in our hearts.

Kent, Sir Arthur

34.

Man, became man through work, who stepped out of the animal kingdom as transformer of the natural into the artificial, who became therefore the magician, man the creator of social reality, will always stay the great magician, will always be Prometheus bringing fire from heaven to earth, will always be Orpheus enthralling nature with his music. Not until humanity itself dies will art die.

Fischer, Ernst

35.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

36.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

37.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Antonius, Marcus

38.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

39.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.

Gandhi, Mahatma

40.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

41.

People can be divided into three classes, the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what has happened.

42.

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.

Morris, Desmond

43.

To the eyes of a god, mankind must appear as a species of bacteria which multiply and become progressively virulent whenever they find themselves in a congenial culture, and whose activity diminishes until they disappear completely as soon as proper measures are taken to sterilize them.

Crowley, Aleister

44.

There are two distinctive classes of people today, those who have personal computers, and those who have several thousand extra dollars apiece.

Barry, Dave

45.

An effective human being is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Rolf, Ida P.

46.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

Disraeli, Benjamin

47.

Man must realize his own unimportance before he can appreciate his importance.

Baumgardy, R. M.

48.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Einstein, Albert

49.

Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!

Lessing, Doris

50.

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

Blake, William